On Friday, ‘Indian publication’ named The Quint, decided to tout the Pakistani narrative when it proclaimed Kulbhushan Jadhav is an Indian spy. The article which has been comprehensively debunked, resulted in outrage among the Indian masses. Following this outrage, Quint was forced to take down its article, by claiming that it was being ‘rechecked’.
One of the major concerns after the Quint story came out was that, Pakistan might start quoting it as a proof, in order to claim that Jadhav is an Indian spy, thereby deliberately endangering his life.
This sadly is what has started to happen as various cogs of the Pakistani establishment have begun quoting the Quint article to further their agenda.
One of the first to quote Quint was PTV World which is part of Pakistan’s state television broadcast:
At 1700 hrs on 5th January Indian publication @TheQuint published a story by Mr Changan Nandy who said that two ex-RAW Chiefs confided in him that it was “absurd” on the part of current RAW setup to recruit Kulbhushan Jadav for intelligence deep inside Pakistan
— PTV World (@WorldPTV) January 6, 2018
PTV was apparently so excited about the Quint story, that it even retweeted our article debunking the Quint story they wanted to peddle and calling them a terrorist nation:
It also quoted the author of the OpIndia article debunking Quint’s story and alleged that the “Indian Journalist” claims that Pakistan’s stand has been exonerated. Owing to lack of comprehension skills displayed by PTV World, the author has offered to get her article translated to a language that most Pakistanis must be learning now – Chinese.
PTV World also put up screenshots of the Quint’s tweet, to further drill home the allegation that Jadhav was a spy.
Later, a Pakistani journalist who works for Express News, decided to highlight the fact that the Quint was retracting its Kulbhushan Jadhav story.
All this was taken to the next level by the official twitter account of the Pakistan government, which is part of their Ministry of Information Broadcasting, by tweeting this:
Indian paper ‘The Quint’ had in one of its stories accepted the truth that Kulbhushan Jadhav was a spy and that some RAW officials had reservations about his appointment.
~Foreign Office Spokesperson Dr. Muhammad Faisal pic.twitter.com/EBPqLwGwvP— Govt of Pakistan (@pid_gov) January 6, 2018
Apart from this, it also decided to spread a rumour that the author of the Quint article is now missing, thereby hinting at the possibility of a foul play:
Foreign Office Spokesperson Dr. Muhammad Faisal says Indian Government has got removed news storytelling truth about convicted spy Kulbhushan Jadhav from a newspaper.
The journalist reporting the story has also gone missing and is untraceable for his family and friends since then pic.twitter.com/a6vNMUMJ4C— Govt of Pakistan (@pid_gov) January 6, 2018
This lie though was busted by an Indian journalist, who called up the author, who is doing fine but refused to comment about the story.
Indians predictably were angered at this behaviour of Pakistani agencies and decided to react:
Pakistan is winning the war.
Hi @smritiirani @narendramodi when are you taking action against The Quint? pic.twitter.com/8yut5LrK0Y— Srikanth Ramakrishnan (I can finally fit my name) (@rsrikanth05) January 6, 2018
Congratulations @TheQuint for being recognised by your government. https://t.co/mTwIpfeyqd
— Vivek Agnihotri (@vivekagnihotri) January 6, 2018
We thank god for these small mercies, otherwise we had to write dialogues for Jadhav every now and then! https://t.co/5dzBqdLEFR
— Naila Inayat (@nailainayat) January 6, 2018
It remains to be seen as to what action the Indian government takes against The Quint. Already, the clamour for punishment is growing, with BJP spokesperson Tajinder Bagga writing to IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad demanding action against the publication.
